


Klaus and Dave Encounter a Flying Spoon

by intheflowers



Series: If I Had An Orchard [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 1960s AU, But chaotically of course, Dave lives, Dave loves his garden, Domesticity, Klaus has a million hobbies and one of them is cooking, M/M, Poor Breadmaking Technique, Telekinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 23:27:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19936273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intheflowers/pseuds/intheflowers
Summary: The title says it all, really. Set in an alternate reality where Dave lives and Klaus stays in the sixties, these two ridiculous men bake some bread, steal some peas, and deal with surprise telekinesis.(And I basically live vicariously through them by giving them a garden and a house of their own because it’s what we all deserve)





	Klaus and Dave Encounter a Flying Spoon

**Author's Note:**

> I miss writing my boys so here they are being HAPPY and IN LOVE but also dealing with some freaky shit because I guess they can't actually catch a break.  
> All in all it's very silly, please enjoy!!

Klaus had flour up to his elbows. It was smudged across his cheek and speckled over one eyebrow, and he was so consumed in his kneading that he didn’t realise Dave was leaning against the doorway, watching him intently, a lazy smile on his lips. 

Dave knew he looked equally messy with that smudge of dirt on his chin, sweat beading on his temple, and grass stains on the knees of his denim overalls. The whole look was (according to Klaus) a valiant attempt at scarecrow-chic. Especially once he’d put on his straw hat and stuck a long piece of grass between his teeth. 

Their little kitchen had started off practical when they moved in but it quickly descended into chaos, mostly because Klaus fell in love with so many cups at the second-hand store and they didn’t have enough cupboards for them all. And because Dave kept bringing in flowers from the garden to surprise Klaus with (he was _always_ delightfully surprised). Their windowsill was packed with flower-filled vases and jars that clinked together with every footfall. The kitchen was also chaotic because a whole corner of the bench was presently taken up with stacks upon stacks of zucchini. They’d somehow managed to grow enough to feed a small army (and they both knew quite intimately just how much food it took to feed one of those). Everything else had crept further and further down the bench to accomodate the hoard until there was barely any bench left. 

Right now it was more chaotic than usual. Klaus was not only making bread; he also had three different pots simmering away on the stove which he seemed to have forgotten about. But knowing Klaus, it was all organised chaos - he’d get to the nearly-burning pan in the nick of time, claiming that a little bit of charring only gave it more flavour. And he’d probably be right. 

However, Klaus _had_ forgotten the pots on the stove. His entire world had become the Bread That Did Not Want To Be. The odd collection of vases clinked together as he punched the misbehaving dough, little puffs of flour rising into the air, coating everything within arms reach. Stupid thing was still sticking to the surface, despite him kneading it for, like, ten whole minutes. 

‘Whatever did that dough do to you?’ Dave asked. 

Klaus yelped, whirling around in surprise. ‘Shit! How long have you been there?’ 

Dave’s eyes sparkled. ‘That’s a secret.’ 

‘Stalker,’ Klaus said, flicking flour at him, secretly enjoying the attention. He pouted, looking back at the mound of dough mournfully. ‘It’s not co-operating. In fact, I’m pretty sure it hates me.’ 

Dave peered over his boyfriend’s shoulder. ‘Needs more kneading.’ 

‘Oh, get out of here.’

‘I could have a go,’ he offered, holding up his filthy hands, making sure Klaus noticed the black soil beneath his fingernails. 

‘Nope, nope,’ Klaus said, flinging his arms out like a mother bird protecting her nest, ‘not a chance you absolute menace.’ 

Dave laughed wickedly as Klaus chased him away from the bench, trying to dart back around. That attempt earned him Klaus’s doughy fingers dragged through his hair, so in return he scooped up some of the plentiful flour on the benchtop and chucked it over Klaus. It looked like a really bad case of dandruff, and he was snorting with laughter until Klaus sent a faceful his way too. It went up his nose. 

Now that was it. Dave wrapped his arms around Klaus’s middle and lifted him into the air. Klaus wriggled and half-heartedly beat his fists against Dave’s back, crying out, ‘Rude! Cheat!’

His flailing arm knocked into the spindly end of a wooden spoon sticking out from one of the pots on the stove, and at that very moment Dave decided to spin him around. The swift turn propelled the spoon from the pot with a clatter. It careened over towards the window, burning-hot tomato sauce splashing their arms as it went. 

Dave froze. Klaus’s eyes went wide. Then, impossibly, the spoon stopped. It hovered, suspended in its arch across the kitchen. Another moment and it would have hit the glass and all the other bits and pieces on the windowsill. 

‘Woah,’ Dave said, his cheek against Klaus’s collarbone, both of them staring at it, utterly transfixed. 

Klaus held up his hand and the spoon gently floated over towards his fingertips. ‘Okay,’ he said, grabbing it firmly, a hint of panic in his voice. ‘That’s… uh, new.’ 

‘You did that?’ 

‘I think so,’ Klaus said, startled and unsure.

‘It flew. You made it fly.’ Dave blinked, trying to comprehend. ‘Shit, Klaus - that’s magic. Legitimately magic.’ 

Klaus’s lips twitched. ‘All the ghosts are just fake magic, huh?’ He was joking, but a part of him agreed. He couldn’t count how many times he’d wished for powers like his siblings when he was a kid. Powers like Diego’s and Allison’s that actually did cool stuff. ‘Oh! Maybe I can control the flight of spoons. Kind of like a knock-off Diego.’ 

He held out the spoon and concentrated as hard as he could, but when he opened his fist the spoon clattered pathetically to the floor. 

‘I’m guessing that’s not what you wanted it to do.’ 

‘Nope,’ Klaus said, eyeing the spoon sadly. ‘I was trying to make it go back to the saucepan. Oh well. I could’ve gotten really good at playing the spoons. Wouldn’t that have been great?’

‘So, what then? You can make things stop flying?’ 

‘Ooh, maybe. Throw something at me.’

‘Sure.’ Dave realised then that Klaus was still in his arms, and so he let him go and picked up a small zucchini in each hand. 

He threw one at Klaus like a boomerang. It shot right past him, hitting the wall with a thud before dropping to the ground. He threw the next. This one got him in the chest. Klaus picked them both up and examined them carefully. 

‘Maybe they have to be wood,’ Klaus said after a thoughtful pause. 

Dave picked up a clean wooden spatula and lobbed it over. It too clattered to the ground. 

‘Maybe I have to care about it.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You cared about the wooden spoon?’ 

‘No, not particularly. But it was going towards the window and…’ he glanced at all the vases, miraculously spared, ‘I didn’t want to waste the sauce. Do you wanna try it, by the way?’ He dipped a new spoon into the sauce and blew on it before holding it to Dave’s lips. 

Dave blew on it too before tasting it. It looked really hot and he always burnt his tongue eating out of the pan before things were done; he wanted to prove he’d learnt his lesson. (He hadn’t. It still burned.) 

‘It’s really good,’ he said anyway, licking his lips. ‘You’ll give old Betty a run for her money.’

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Klaus hissed in quiet celebration. ‘I told you I’d prove her wrong, that old biddy.’

‘Old Biddy-Betty.’

‘Old Biddy-Betty-Bitch.’ 

Dave laughed. ‘I’d say you can’t call an eighty-year-old a bitch, but she deserves it.’

‘Glad to have your support, babe,’ Klaus said, grinning. His expression fell a moment later. ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I don’t even know _how_ I did it. If I did it. Maybe there’s something funny in this flour and we’re both tripping. It does kinda look like you snorted it, and god knows I’ve eaten enough already.’ He peered at the dough still stuck on his hand, nibbled at a tiny corner of it and made a face. 

Dave sat down at their rickety round table. Klaus joined him, chin in his hand. ‘It doesn’t really feel like I’m going out on a limb to say it was probably you,’ Dave said. ‘What with your family’s whole schtick and all.’ 

‘Yeah, I know,’ Klaus said, quiet all of a sudden. 

Dave took Klaus’s free hand. ‘You alright?’

Klaus nodded, gaze downcast. He wasn’t really okay - in fact, he was trying to ignore the sudden anxious pounding of his heart. He felt like he was poised beneath a butcher’s knife. Worrying that Reginald would pop up out of nowhere demanding to start the tests and keep him under observation until whatever just happened was fully defined and categorised, until he was hung, drawn and quartered, ready to package up and distribute to all who clamoured for a bit of fresh meat. Greedy hands grabbing him up for their own purposes all over again. He’d have to start all over again. New horrors, new ways to cope. There was no chance he would make it through a second time. He’d barely made it once. 

He shivered. It was irrational, all these thoughts, because Dad didn’t know who Klaus was in this time. He wasn’t even _alive_ anymore in the other time. Klaus knew he was being illogical and that stopped him from spiralling entirely, but still his heart thrummed with fear.

Dave’s thumb swept across his knuckles. It was soft, soothing. Klaus took a deep breath and looked up into the gentle blue eyes of his boyfriend. God, he loved that man. 

‘That’s sobriety, I guess,’ Klaus said eventually. ‘You discover the weirdest shit about yourself.’ He made a bitter face. ‘Only I thought it was meant to be about taking control of my life, yet here I am with yet another thing I can’t control. Whoop-de-doo.’ 

Dave got a little furrow between his eyebrows, and his mouth went all frowny like it did whenever he was concerned and couldn’t hide it. ‘Hey, you don’t know that. This is the first time it’s happened, right?’ 

‘Yeah. As far as I’m aware.’ 

‘Okay. So maybe you just need more practice. And I don’t mean any of the bullshit training like the stuff your father made you do. I mean normal practice.’ 

‘But I don’t know how I did it!’ Klaus protested miserably. ‘How can I practice something like that? I’m not in control, not if it just happens.’ 

‘Sure,’ Dave agreed. ‘Maybe you’re not in control of the moving-shit-magic, whatever it is, but you’re in control of your situation now. You get to make your own mind up about what happens. There’s no rush, no pressure. You can even ignore it if you want, for however long it takes until you feel ready. No one’s gonna make you do anything you don’t want to. I’m not.’

‘But I could hurt you,’ Klaus whispered. He chewed on his lip, watching the saucepan bubble. What if he sent that flying accidentally?

‘I’m sturdy,’ Dave said, hitting himself on the arm as evidence. ‘I can handle a zucchini or two to the head.’

Klaus laughed, albeit weakly. ‘Oh yeah? Wanna try it out?’ 

‘Only if I get to throw them back.’ 

‘Obviously. It’s a date, then.’ 

After that, they were both quiet for a moment, mulling over the strange events of the afternoon. 

‘You know what I think?’ Dave ventured. He didn’t wait for Klaus to answer, instead smiling and squeezing his hand tight. ‘I reckon if you really want to, you’ll be able to master it. I know you can. Just the fact that you’ve been sober for nearly three months is proof enough. If there’s something you wanna do, you damn well do it. Floating spoons are _nothing_ compared to what you’ve already done.’ 

Klaus bumped his elbow into Dave’s. ‘I guess you’re right.’ 

‘I’m definitely right,’ he said. ‘Tell me if you’re freaked out over it, ‘kay? And I don’t care how many spoons I have to throw, I’ll help you figure it out. If you want me to.’ 

Klaus nodded, then planted a kiss on Dave’s cheek. Dave blushed sweetly like he so often did when caught unawares, before pulling Klaus back to kiss him properly. 

‘You wanna go steal Mr Zhong’s peas?’ Dave asked when they moved apart. 

‘Uh, hell yeah,’ Klaus replied, grateful for the distraction.

Mr Zhong was their neighbour and a brilliantly wily old man. Of course, by steal Dave meant that he’d leave a basket of zucchini in exchange, as per their current arrangement. Despite the legality of the venture, they still liked to pretend they were sneaking over all stealthy in the afternoon sun. Mr Zhong was in on the game too - if he saw them he’d shake his broom at them, laughing and red-cheeked, and they’d run for the fence.

Klaus got up and turned off the stove, shook his fist at the dough (which was spreading happily outwards where it had been abandoned like a great slug of bread) then looped his arm through Dave’s, and together they went out into the garden. 

Later, they ate wonky homemade pizzas as they sat in the grass, muted music drifting out from the record player inside. Dave scratched idly at a mosquito bite and Klaus relished the stillness of the evening. He was feeling normal again - his new normal too, all upright and clearheaded and awake, a state that was much harder to maintain than it looked but worth it for the moments like this. 

None of that was on his mind though. Instead, he was thinking about how the flowers smelt better in the dusk, and how Dave brought him bunches of them nearly every other day, and how Klaus pretended to be surprised every time just because he loved to see the way Dave smiled when he held them out to him. (Sometimes if Dave snuck up on him he was actually, truly surprised, but most of the time he would lurk with an arm half-hidden behind a doorframe or some other piece of furniture and it was just so endearingly obvious.)

‘Hey, Dave?’ he said, picking at the grass. 

‘Yeah?’

‘Love you.’ 

Dave stuck the crust of his pizza in his mouth and slung his arm around Klaus, scrunching him in close. ‘Love you too,’ he said, only the words were muffled by the food. 

Klaus laughed and thought that maybe he’d be okay. All the problems posed by mysteriously flying spoons didn’t seem quite so bad while Dave was by his side. 

A year ago he would have turned his nose up at something that sickeningly sentimental. But fuck it, he thought. So much else had changed - why not that too?

**Author's Note:**

> Danke for reading, please feel free to drop me a comment if you liked it! <3 <3 <3


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